Latest articles

Long live Trump, long live Putin, long live Le Pen and long live the League!

— Matteo Salvini, Lega Nord leader

Demagogic in parts, simply irreverent in others, the populist wave that seized the White House last month continues to inflict its casualties across the Atlantic. The Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, known as Il Rottamatore or Demolition Man, had to fall on his sword after yet another miscalculation by the necromancy of polling. As with Brexit, the establishment forces were left reeling in indignation and, more often than not, self-denial.

Eight years of legislative constipation suddenly ends when it comes to Congress' preferred constituency

by Denis R. O'Brien / December 9th, 2016

To provide for the consideration of a definition of anti-Semitism for the enforcement of Federal antidiscrimination laws concerning education programs or activities

Apparently American Jews, although they comprise only about 2% of the American population, send so many shekels to Congress that when a bill benefiting them comes up, Congress drops everything else to pass the bill immediately. And the reason I say it is that I am stunned at how after eight years of Congressional do-nothing grid-lock, the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act was introduced into the Senate last Thursday, December 01, and passed the very same day. Unanimously, without amendment.

The liberal left media has been pushing many ideas about what the election of Donald Trump symbolizes. Arguments abound about how to combat the rising tide of the Alt-Right. Many of these arguments deal with how one’s particular gender, race, or orientation affects the way in which one might join the fight for equal rights. The specific villain to target seems to change week to week, day to day, like the specials menu at a gluten free, vegan, locavore café and bakery.

The electorate that supported Trump’s move into office (for the most part) declare his victory as a move towards …

The man-made environmental catastrophe is the severest issue facing humanity. It should be the number one priority for governments, but despite repeated calls from scientists, environmental groups and concerned citizens for years, short-term policies and economic self-interest are consistently given priority over the integrity of the planet and the health of the population.

Environmental inequality

Contaminated air is the world’s greatest preventable environmental health risk, and, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), is responsible for the premature deaths of an estimated 6.5 million people annually (11.6% of global deaths) – an average of six every minute. And unless there is substantial …

Before his first inauguration I wrote a letter to President-Elect Barack Obama beseeching him to consider addressing the world with a peace overture once in his office. I never got a reply, and the rest is history.

The campaign speeches of now President-Elect Donald Trump suggest he might be more amenable to a similar letter than was his immediate predecessor. Once this article is published I intend to send Mr. Trump the following letter.
*****
Dear Mr. President-Elect,

Sir, you have a golden opportunity on your Inauguration Day. At that moment America’s future is in your hands by your charting of that …

Given the founding of the nation in vicious ethnic cleansing of the original inhabitants and the forced immigration of kidnapped Africans in chains, racism, the false notion that humans are members of different races with some superior or inferior by virtue of skin tone, has taken hold of the minds of most Americans. Given the taught and learned rationalization of that material ugliness of national origins as being natural divisions among humans, this is understandable. But when racism becomes a fetish used to keep divisions among people that ensure minority wealth’s continued dominance of what is supposed to be a …

Here in Kabul, I’m generally an early riser at the home of the Afghan Peace Volunteers, but I’m seldom alone. Facing exams, my young friends awaken early and then stay up late to study. Before sunrise this morning, eighteen year old Ghulamai sits in the kitchen, poring over his textbook. His efforts have made him number one in his class for the past three school terms. Now in the eleventh grade, he greatly hopes to continue his education, but his situation is precarious.

After sunrise each day Ghulamai heads out on his bicycle to the one-room home that his mother shares …

COP22 again highlighted the mismatch between illusive policymaking and the stark reality of global warming. As always, it was left to civil society groups to uphold a vision of global cooperation and economic sharing as the only path towards a sustainable future.
*****
As 2016 draws to a close, we appear to be living in a world that is increasingly defined by its illusions, where the truth is a matter of subjective interpretation or argumentative debate. Indeed, following the United States election and Brexit referendum there is much talk of a new era of post-truth politics, in which appeals to …

Big Money and the US government controlled by Big Money intend to close down Internet truthtellers. As Trump intends to reduce the tensions between nuclear powers, the 200 List prepared by the shadowy Internet site, PropOrNot, is in Trump’s way. Either Trump will be apprised and convinced of the “Russian threat,” or the dissident websites will be promoted to “Muslim apologists” and fall under the ire of Trump’s Iranophobic generals.

Our site, www.paulcraigroberts.org, is one of the sites targeted to be closed down. As I recently reported, the US House of Representatives already has passed a bill that creates an interagency …

To stimulate the economy, create new jobs and generate new GDP requires an injection of new money. Borrowing from the bond markets or off-balance-sheet in public/private partnerships won’t do it. If Congress won’t issue money directly, it should borrow from banks, which create money on their books when they make loans.

The Trump agenda, it seems, is not set in stone. The president-elect has a range of advisors with as many ideas. Steven Mnuchin, his nominee for Treasury Secretary, said in November that “we’ll take a look at everything,”even the possibility of extending the maturity of the federal debt with …

From Manila and Davao — There is a sense of change in those narrow and desperate alleys of the Baseco slum in the Philippines’ capital, Manila. For the first time in many years a beautiful, noble lady visited; against all odds she decided to stay. Her name is Hope.Baseco Slum
Baseco is a tough, crime-ridden region built from cartons and metal sheets, even rusty containers; everything is thrown together in startling fashion, right near the shipyard.…

The UK-based Liberty Campaign expressed it most glumly. “The Government’s new Snoopers’ Charter (also known as the Investigatory Powers Bill) will allow the bulk collection of all our personal information. Who we talk to; what we say; where we are; what we look at online – everything.”

Championed while she was Home Secretary, Prime Minister Theresa May has seen her wishes fulfilled. Total surveillance – and there was already a good deal of that in Britain – is coming to the country. Late last month, the Investigatory Powers Bill, known by its faux cuddly, yet sinister term, the Snoopers’ charter, received …

In July 2003, the then Palestinian Authority Chairman, Yasser Arafat, described Mahmoud Abbas as a ‘traitor’ who “betrayed the interests of the Palestinian People.”

Arafat loathed Abbas to the very end. This particular outburst was made during a meeting with the United Nations envoy, Terje Larsen. The meeting took place a few months after Arafat was coerced by the US, Israel and other Western powers to appoint Abbas as Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority.

Historically, Abbas has been the least popular among Fatah leaders – the likes of Abu Jihad, Abu Iyad, and Arafat, himself. These popular leaders were …

Remember when intellectual liberals and democratic elites shook their fingers under our noses and solemnly predicted that the sky would fall if we didn’t “hold our nose and vote for Clinton?” A lot of people listened — to the first part of the message. They held their noses and voted for — Trump. Strange, considering the polls conducted within days of the election were unanimous on one point: 60 to 80% of those polled did not like Trump.

What happened? Depends on whom you ask. If you ask HRC, her defeat can be laid at the door of the FBI director’s …

In a major self-inflicted wound Israeli nationalist groups recently turned support for a BDS motion targeting Israel’s occupation into overwhelming approval for a resolution also demanding action to address the plight of Palestinian refugees and Palestinian citizens of Israel. And, in a further bizarre twist, Elizabeth May and others within the Green Party leadership have tried to obfuscate the extent of the membership’s support for Palestinian rights.

In August the Green Party of Canada voted to support “the use of divestment, boycott and sanctions (BDS) that are targeted atthose sectors of Israel’s economy and society which profit from the …

The presstitute media delivered the false news, not from Russian propaganda websites such as the Washington Post accuses this one of being, but from Obama’s US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The false news is that the collapsing economy continues to boom with 178,000 new jobs in November and a further fall in the rate of unemployment to 4.6%.

What are the facts? Nothing you will ever hear from the presstitutes or the corrupt Obama regime.

The facts are that November produced only 9,000 full time jobs, an improvement over the previous month when full time employment declined by 103,000 jobs—another fact that …

The last reported instance of white Texans burning an African American at the stake occurred eighty-three years ago today, December 7, 1933, near a black neighborhood in Kountze, Texas.

On Saturday, December 2, a 30-year-old white woman named Nellie Williams Brockman left her and her husband’s farm and headed to a department store in Kountze by truck. Somewhere along the way she ran into trouble and was apparently shot. They found her body next to the truck and both the vehicle and her corpse were partially burned.

The passing of Fidel Castro at 90 years of age provided opponents of the Cuban Revolution with an opportunity to pick up their ideological mantra in favour of some abstract notion of democracy, while ignoring the Revolution’s social achievements and human development. But Cuba’s foreign policy has also been of a remarkable consistency, and its impact has been lauded by many people, including its enemies. What were the revolutionary principles that guided Fidel Castro after …

In the wake of Brexit and Trump, “mainstream” media have done the formerly unthinkable by focusing on media bias. The intensity of focus has been such that the Oxford Dictionaries have announced that ‘post-truth’ is their ‘Word of the Year 2016’.

‘Post-truth’ refers to ‘circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’.

Students of ‘brainwashing under freedom’ will notice that this bears a striking resemblance to 20th century US policy advisor Reinhold Niebuhr’s insistence on the use of ’emotionally potent over-simplifications’ to control the public …

A lot has recently been said about “fake” news. Social media and alternative news websites have been especially blamed. But what about our corporate news providers?

Consider, for example, a front page story in last week’s Times, supposedly the most important news item of the day, in Britain’s supposedly most important newspaper. The headline reads, “Labour has few safe seats left, MPs warn”. The piece refers to last week’s by-election result at Richmond Park. The Labour party, the article claims, “suffered humiliation” in the result, which was a “dismal showing”. But linking the Richmond result to Labour safe seats is …